OUT OF THE BLUE - REMASTERED

The powers that be at Sony BMG gave the nod to a limited edition outside of a standard edition. So that makes the message clear: Out of the Blue is the album that defines Electric Light Orchestra. For the world outside of the fanbase, there doesn't seem to be much else to ELO other than this album. But ELO had everything you can ask for in 1977-8. 17 new songs spread out over 2LPs, posters and cut-out spaceship to promote the album stuffed inside (you don't see that anymore, do you?) and an enormous concert tour that fed wild hungry imaginations. As an absolutely riveted kid, the moment I played this album was the moment I latched on for good.

It's 30 years later and in that time, ELO became the one band which I enjoy exploring completely. I'm interested in hearing everything from the crude beginning to the bittersweet end and all the crumbs in between. And I mean everything. So, where does Out of the Blue stand in all of this. This album is so many things I hope for in an album with Jeff Lynne's name on it: some short little pop ditties, an even shorter segue track or two, but also some longer more in-depth tracks. I hear the unique places (for better or worse) where Jeff Lynne, the producer, takes his songs... and for a satisfying amount of time, I hear these guys play!! For those reasons, Out Of The Blue is strong, perhaps the strongest of their career. As a fan 30 years later, though, I'm stuck in a dilemma. No matter how many times I try to warm up to this album today, I find it so over the top, I just barely get through it. This album was a dream come true for me as a kid, but today...

Yes, I appreciate the hard work Jeff and the rest of the band and support staff did to create this. Yes, the remastered edition sounds excellent and reveals little details I never knew were there. It helps, believe me. Jeff's creative burst isn't going by unnoticed. But on the whole, Jeff Lynne and ELO were way more interesting before and after this album. I can’t help but to notice the remaster also reveals several tape flaws in some of the more quiet areas of the album.

Now, this doesn't mean there's nothing to celebrate. When I heard eco-book edition, though, I thought of the soundtrack to Six Feet Under and worried... a lot. It's bulky and a bit flimsy. But then you get a copy of Out Of The Blue's eco-bok in your hands. At first you think, how did they fit 24 pages, a cut-out spaceship and a CD in there. But they did, and it's fantastic. The liner notes here probably paint the clearest picture of what any of ELO's recording sessions were like, plus a pretty comprehensive rundown of why ELO was one of the biggest most successful bands in the world during 1978. For those reasons and the amazing remastering, there's plenty to celebrate. Only thing is, I'll probably be looking at it way more than I'll be playing it.

BALANCE OF POWER - REMASTERED

I was at an away swim meet at Penn State when I saw this crudely made sign at the front door of a record shop in 1986. It said, New ELO. That was highlight of that trip, not the swim meet. It’s more than 20 years later and at long last, Balance Of Power was brought up to today’s sound standards. The improvement helped other ELO remasters in the past and this really is no different. One of the things when you re-discover an album is re-evaluate the whole package. (note: I’m only talking about the downloaded songs, I don’t have the CD yet.)

Balance Of Power has a little more substance than I gave it in 1986. Years later we learned that it was album Jeff seemed to dread making, but had to. The lyrical content on the album and its outtakes is the obvious clue to his discontent. The most poignant moment being Send It, which when you go back and really listen to it, is more powerful than much of his 80s material. The dream is gone, the dream is just a memory, if you see my dream, send it back home to me. How didn’t I see how good (and sad) that was before.

So, here’s an album who’s own label thought so much of it, they considered releasing it as a download-only. Download-only should be an option when (and only when) full size waveform files are made available and feasible to download. Maybe I’m a rare audiophile, but mp3’s are complete rubbish and a huge step backward for music listeners. It might be convenient for some, but it sucks for the rest of us. A CD for this album is a no-brainer. Case closed on that.

Compared to the old CD, there’s a huge difference in every track. The indexing is fixed and one track doesn’t run into another. It hard to argue the improvement. In Calling America, though, the drum beat clips a few times, most noticeable at “Said she call when she’d been gone a while…” Again, I’m working off the download, not the CD. There could be a difference between them, we’ll see.

Now, the bonus tracks. As a disclaimer, I understand that I’m a very fortunate person to have my favorite band’s catalog remastered with bonus tracks and I’m grateful for all of them. Comparing one bonus track to a version I perhaps shouldn’t have doesn’t aid my cause, but here we go.

Opening: Nice. Makes a smooth segue for the next track.

Heaven Only Knows (Alternative Version): Let me put this in a way hopefully some may understand. When I’m pretty sure a pint of pale ale is in my future (an ale that I’ve heard, I mean, had before… just not as, ahem, clear) I really look forward to that pint. But then I get to the pub, and the bartender hands me a shot glass of pale ale instead of the pint. It’s nice and it tastes great, but the pint would have been dreamy. This version of Heaven Only Knows is a shot glass of pale ale. (Missing two bridges and a verse.) Please, Mr. Bartender, reconsider the pint! Before the bar closes!!

In For The Kill: Love this variation or early version of what ultimately became Caught In A Trap. Caught In A Trap has the edge, but this is great listening. The end gave me a good chuckle.

Secret Lives: This can’t possibly be one of the best outtakes from these sessions.

Sorrow About To Fall: Lots of different bits happening throughout this version that ended up on the cutting room floor. The LP version is ultimately the best, but nothing wrong with this one at all.

Caught In A Trap & Destination Unknown: Oh how I’ve waited years to replace my old vinyl dubs of these. These two end up on my personal compilations, but now they can sound like the rest of the songs. Totally refreshing to hear these remastered. But again, I don’t consider it complete until the physical CD of this is in my hand!!

iTunes

I don't know if this is true worldwide, but iTunes was just given a pretty big overhaul.  The biggest improvement, the silence gap between songs is gone, so now you can hear any albums that are continuous or have segues (ELO has a few of them) all the way through without a pause.

They ways you can view your library aren't bad either.

ON THE THIRD DAY

So, three albums from ELO's classic years have finally gotten their due.  It was a long ride to get to this point.  These were almost released in 2001, and then again in May of this year.  It felt like forever.  But here we are... and we still have a ways to go before Out Of The Blue, Balance Of Power and hopefully more beyond that.
What I'm most excited about here is that these songs are finally back in the context of which they truly belong: their original albums.  Best-of's have become so tiresome and no Best-of will satisfy everyone no matter how much research you put into it.
On The Third Day was probably the album in most dire need of remastering and right from the opening notes of the disc, you'll hear why.  Complete night and day difference from the one and only previous CD version.  We already have all but one bonus track on here, but that whole sequence (from the EMI First Light Series edition of ELO 2) is quite solid as is.
One big improvement over the 2001 remasters is Jeff Lynne commentary.  One page with a few thoughts from the band's leader is fine.  Track by Track commentary with a one sentence comment under the title just didn't work.  Some of them were just outright strange.
On that note, I hope Mainartery is designing the rest of the catalog booklets.  Of course, I think it'd be great to have the whole catalog done this way, but... we'll see.
Welcome to my CD collection, On The Third Day.  You're a valuable edition.

FACE THE MUSIC

Face The Music on CD went through some interesting formations through the years, the first US pressing was made using the Singles/banded for airplay version, thereby cutting an already short album shorter.  Then in 1995 came the rather impressive Gold Disc Mastersound edition which had a 30 second hidden track before track 1.

But now, we have the 2006 remastered edition, 16 page booklet, improved sound, the whole nine yards.  When we talk about restored album artwork for this CD, it basically means they removed the Compact Disc/Digitally mastered/Analog Recording seal from the front and replaced it with a much more obnoxious FBI warning on the back.  Go figure.

Again, not much to argue on how well the CD sounds.  One Summer Dream really shines on this, as does Fire On High and Nightrider.  As for Bonus tracks:

Fire On High Intro (Early Alternative mix)- this will not get an everday listen, but it is rather fun to hear what they had in mind when they created this.  Bev Bevan's "fantastic" as it fades out puts the exclamation point on this cool outtake.

Evil Woman (Stripped Down Mix)- Jeff Lynne says in the liner notes that this mix is better than the original.  I'm on board with that sentiment.  Outside of Telephone Line (Instrumental), this is the best new track on this batch of remasters.  Extra verse?  Awesome.

Strange Magic (US Single Edit)- complete waste of valuable space.  Strange Magic is fine the way it is.  Unless it's a singles collection, I find edits to be completely pointless.  There's a unique mix of One Summer Dream on a UK single which would have suited this spot better than an edit of Strange Magic.

Waterfall (Instrumental Mix)- Very pleasant selection.

A NEW WORLD RECORD

Funny.  It took a friend of mine who's a biology professor to explain to me whay I enjoy the bonus tracks on this CD so much.  Take So Fine (Instrumental Early Rough Mix) for instance.  There's a part of your brain that's left unsatisifed when you can't really hear what's going on in the background of a song. After all these years, your brain finally clearly catches what you suspected was going on underneath the layers of vocals.  The orchestrated part of So Fine (Instrumental Early Rough Mix) reveals the spine tingling arrangement the guys came up with and in the end, almost leaves you wanting a cigarette.  Same goes for the three other backing tracks on this album.

The main album sound quality is as superior as Third Day and Face The Music, revealing these little parts I never knew (or forgotten) were there.  I thought Mission (A World Record) was the starkest improvement for me.  It could be because I never paid that close attention to it before.  Many people will argue whether Surrender is indeed from these sessions, but either way it works here.  Many people will also argue whether Kelly Groucutt's voice is on it.  I'll go out on a limb here: considering Jeff's current relationship with the former bass player and the advent of ProTools, I think Kelly's backing vocal was the first to go... if it was there in the first place.

Anyway, the disc is perfect ELO listening.  Starting with a perfect and powerful sounding Tightrope to the compelling instrumental version of Telephone Line to finish, this version of A New World Record lives up to what we always hope an ELO release will be: well-done, well-thought out, and well presented for a band who deserves such treatment.

MORE HIGHWAY COMPANION

I'll give these guys this much, there something in each of these tracks that makes you come back.  This CD is not just meant for immediate gratification.  The CD is holding up better than I first thought.

Funny how many reviews of Highway Companion I've read that mention that Jeff scaled his production this time... again.  Maybe, maybe not.  It's simply the same high quality work he normally does.  Tom's songwriting and Mike's guitar playing never waver, either.

Let the road be long.

HIGHWAY COMPANION

I have to admit, when I got wind of Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty (and Mike Campbell) cutting an album together again, I spent the time since then making up dozens of variations in my mind on how this album would sound.  And of course, I worked up my hopes that this would be the best new album by anyone in years.  I have to stop doing that.

 

Highway Companion is Tom Petty’s best album since Wildflowers.  We’ll get that out of the way now and I’m getting the sense that many critics are going to reach the same conclusion.  However, Highway Companion starts to run out of rocket fuel about half-way through.

 

Saving Grace:  I’m holding to my original assessment of this.  Excellent track, hit-worthy, breaks newer ground, great feel.  It’s probably the album’s strongest track and if you go by Conversations With Tom Petty, it was one of the last songs recorded for Highway Companion… and the only rocker.

 

Square One: If you’re like me and have to have any new Jeff Lynne-related music as soon as I can get my hands on it, then Square One will be a bit of an afterthought.  It’s been out for almost a year and the song kinda ran its course for now.  But again, I hold to original assessment on this, Square One is too good to leave off Highway Companion.  Collectors note, the very end of the song was changed from the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Elizabethtown version.

 

Flirting With Time:  I didn’t find anything about “Flirting with Time” that made me say “Wow” but I found myself tapping the steering wheel a little more than usual.  I guess that can’t be a bad thing.

 

Down South:  Exactly what I hoped I’d hear from Tom Petty produced by Jeff Lynne:  Layers of unique guitar sounds with one riff that holds it all together.  The lyrics, the music, the arrangement, the trippy production, everything just hit the spot for me as a fan of Tom and a fan of Jeff.  My far and away favorite on this album.

 

Jack:  I never saw or bought the DVD for Elizabethtown, but I read someone talk about Jack being used in the film and it was supposedly a rocker.  It isn’t.  But this short and unusual morsel grows on you quickly.

 

Turn This Car Around:  This is even a little more unconventional than Jack.  I’m not totally on board with it yet, but something is making me come back to it.  I’ll figure it out what that is eventually.

 

Big Weekend:  Ah, yes.  The Wilbury shout-out.  For as much as I adored the Wilbury music, there’s too many similarities in Big Weekend to make this a stand-out track.  And this was used by the NBA for Finals montages?  I can’t help to wonder if that helps or hurts.  I will say, though, the song (like Saving Grace) is much better than the 30 second clip used in the NBA Finals suggested.

 

Night Driver:  For whatever reason, I over-hyped this one in my brain and I haven’t gotten over it.  The George Harrison-style guitar solo did nothing for me this time.

 

Damaged By Love:  Simple tune, maybe a little too simple.  But out of the simple tunes on this record (and there are a few), Damaged by Love gets better the more I listen.

 

This Old Town:  This one doesn’t break any new ground, but all of the elements weave in and out of each pretty pleasantly.  But like most of the songs on the second half of the album, there’s something missing that would give it a better “wow” factor.

 

Ankle Deep:  “She didn’t speak, for a week, just kinda mumbled…” saved this song.  I have to hand it to Tom, he still knows how to churn out agreat lyric.

 

The Golden Rose:  We get a long-overdue dose of Jeff’s haunting production side.  But it’s a prime example of what drives me nuts about his producing.  The song is clearly the album’s finale.  Intro is great, fade out is great.  Outside of that, the song is skin and bones.  At the very least, the last chorus could have gone a second time as a slightly more dramatic and logical album farewell.  Sometimes, he cuts songs off at the knee and it hurts.  I understand the point of having a two and half minute track and not every song needs to be 4 or 5 minutes.  But it’s an unsatisfying feeling to say “Is that it?”  I should be glad, three songs on the album went 4 minutes or better.

 

I’ll be interested in seeing how the critics and Tom Petty fans embrace this.  Don’t get me wrong, it has some totally refreshing moments, I just fear too many comparisons to Full Moon Fever.  If that happens, they’ll sell this record short and Highway Companion is too good to sell short.

HAD A LITTLE MISHAP...

Lots going on in ELO-land, but I wasn't able to update the site for over a week.  The hard drive (on my now replaced computer) hit a bad sector and all hell broke loose around here.  Lost pretty much everything on the drives so I have to start over.

Will be back with some updates tomorrow.

Isn't Surrender great?

CHECK YOUR BRACKETS...

Various Artists - Brumbeat: The Story of the 60s Midlands Sound (on Castle/Sanctuary)  Out now... and getting good feedback from it. 

Carl Wayne: Songs From The Wood and Beyond  (on Castle/Sanctuary)  Already released.

Electric Light Orchestra - The Collection (EMI collection)   March 13.  Pretty decent as far as budget releases go. 

Electric Light Orchestra - Out Of The Blue Live at Wembley DVD  (allegedly with stereo/surround mix at last)   March 20

Electric Light Orchestra - No Answer &  ELO II (USA remastered editions)  March 28.

Electric Light Orchestra - On The Third Day, Face The Music and A New World Record:  all remastered and expanded on May 16.  Musictap.net (the source of this info) was almost spot on about No Answer and ELOII way back when...

Electric Light Orchestra - Out Of The Blue and Balance Of Power remasters.  September.

Roy Wood - Look Through The Eyes of Roy Wood (on Castle/Sanctuary)  April 10.

Roy Wood - The Wizzard (on EMI)  April 3... advance promos already circulating.

Tom Petty - Highway Companion (Produced by Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty and Michael Campbell)  June.

Electric Light Orchestra - The Harvest Years 1970-1973.  3CD set - 2006

ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA - THE COLLECTION

Those who think they pay too much money for a CD have nothing to complain about with this.  It cost me all of US$5.

Having said that, this collection doesn't add a whole lot for the tried and true fans.  Although the booklet is nice for a budget release... and the back of the book and liner notes tease a 3-CD anthology of ELO's Harvest years coming sometime this year.

Another thing:  why has the word Quadraphonic disappeared and the words Alternate Mix are in its place?  It's on the USA remastered editions of No Answer and ELO II as well.  Not a criticism, just wondering.

BRUMBEAT - THE STORY OF THE 60S MIDLANDS SOUND

I have to admit, I don't listen to 50s or 60s music from any part of the world, much less the Midlands, but I thought the new Brumbeat CD set would be worth having anyway.

I know fully well, in the end, this will eventually sit with the CDs that rarely get touched, but I'm finding a lot to like about this.  I can only measure the Move and Idle Race tracks when I judge sound quality and frankly, Day Of The Broken Arrows surprised me.  Only because I thought the Back To The Story set was as good as the sound quality gets on these songs.  Wrong.

It makes the whole prospect of the upcoming Idle Race boxed set more appetizing... and Sanctuary is quickly winning me over.

ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA REMASTERS

Well, the news has sunk in and the details are posted to FTM Online. 

On The Third Day bonus tracks are not entirely unexpected.  The main album remastered is the most exciting aspect here.

Face The Music looks fine except for a useless USA single edit taking up space. I'm quite intriqued at the stripped down mix of Evil Woman.  There were a few b-sides for this album's singles which were never used... and apparently still won't be.  Then again, they'd make good iTunes material.

Without question, the most anticipated of this bunch will be A New World Record.  Surrender is a surprise.  I heard a few of the bonus tracks at Camp Rob in Ontario a few years back.  They are quite simply: awesome.  It's a totally different experience hearing the rough instrumental mixes of So Fine and Tightrope.  (For the record, I've not heard Tightrope yet.)   It not only shows how amazing these guys were on this record, but the enormous talent that went into creating the orchestral arrangements.  You'll flip, I promise you.

THE TALLY SO FAR...

Let's check the score, shall we?

Various Artists - Brumbeat: The Story of the 60s Midlands Sound (on Castle/Sanctuary)  Out now... and getting good feedback from it.  Post feedback on this if you can.

Carl Wayne: Songs From The Wood and Beyond  (on Castle/Sanctuary)  Already released.

Electric Light Orchestra - The Collection (EMI collection)   Out starting March 13.  Budget collection.  I have one on the way, will post my thoughts on it later.

Electric Light Orchestra - Out Of The Blue Live at Wembley DVD  (allegedly with stereo/surround mix at last)   March 20

Electric Light Orchestra - No Answer &  ELO II (USA remastered editions)  March 28.

Electric Light Orchestra - On The Third Day, Face The Music and A New World Record:  all remastered and expanded on May 16.  Musictap.net (the source of this info) was almost spot on about No Answer and ELOII way back when...

Roy Wood - Look Through The Eyes of Roy Wood (on Castle/Sanctuary)  March 13, but not a peep on this yet.

Roy Wood - The Wizzard (on EMI)  April 3... advance promos already circulating.

ROY ORBISON

The Essential Roy Orbison is set for release on March 28, the new two disc set will feature, You Got It (of course) and 3 other Jeff Lynne productions.  What's interesting here is that in the next two years Legacy Recordings is planning on releasing a remastered Mystery Girl CD and a DualDisc edition of Roy's "King Of Hearts" disc from 1992.  While the Essential Collection will contain all three Jeff Lynne-produced tracks from Mystery Girl, the DualDisc of King Of Hearts will be the more intriquing project.

I've been finding that artists are opting more for Enhanced Stereo on the DVD side of a Dual Disc instead of a 5.1 Surround Sound.  Which will King of Hearts have?  Time will tell.  I'd personally would like to lobby for the set to contain the video for Heartbreak Radio, even with the fake Roy in it.

BACK UP AGAIN

Pre-order links at the Sony Music Store are back up for the USA remastered editions of No Answer and ELO II... release day, according to the listings, is now March 28.

FOR THOSE OF YOU KEEPING SCORE... PART 2

The release schedule is starting to crowd in.

Various Artists - Brumbeat: The Story of the 60s Midlands Sound (on Castle/Sanctuary)  February 20.

Carl Wayne: Songs From The Wood and Beyond  (on Castle/Sanctuary)  Already released.

Electric Light Orchestra - The Collection (EMI collection)   March 6

Electric Light Orchestra - Out Of The Blue Live at Wembley DVD  (allegedly with stereo/surround mix at last)   March 20

Electric Light Orchestra - No Answer &  ELO II (USA remastered editions)  April

Roy Wood - Look Through The Eyes of Roy Wood (on Castle/Sanctuary)  March 13

Roy Wood - The Wizzard (on EMI)  April 3

LIKE THE GOOD 'OL DAYS

Today in the UK is the release day of something that I don't believe we've seen for a long time: a Harvest Records sampler. OK, Harvest Showdown is, but it's all ELO and related.   The 10-track sampler, called It Wasn't My Idea To Dance, features one track from the Move (if you haven't guessed) and one track by ELO.

That's one part of the Message From The Country website I hope gets completed: the Harvest Records Today feature article.  I really am interested in reading about that.

FOR THOSE OF YOU KEEPING SCORE...

ELO and related fans, I hope you're saving your money.  Here's the running tab:

Electric Light Orchestra - The Collection (EMI collection)   March 6

Electric Light Orchestra - Out Of The Blue Live at Wembley DVD  (allegedly with stereo/surround mix at last)   March 20

Electric Light Orchestra - No Answer &  ELO II (USA remastered editions)  March 21.  More likely April.

Roy Wood - Look Through The Eyes of Roy Wood (on Castle/Sanctuary)  March 13

Roy Wood - The Wizzard (on EMI)  April 3

 

None of these have official announcements yet, so expect changes.  At least it looks like they're on the way.

VINYL VS. CD

A rather interesting debate has turned up on the Showdown list about the vinyl LP.  In the end, we're talking about sound quality on vinyl versus CD.  With the ELO remastered and expanded editions (maybe or maybe not) trickling out beginning in March, some people are not convinced they'll sound better than their original vinyl albums.  More on that later.

Others, of course, don't see the point of remasters at all.  Then, there's the camp I'm in: busting at the seams to get them in my hands.

Remastered ELO albums will do several things...

1. ...restore the sound of their catalog, period.  The un-remastered ELO CDs were made in 1987.  Technology-wise, that's a lifetime ago.   For some people, though, just having it on CD is fine.  But frankly, the EMI First Light editions sold me hook, line & sinker on remasters.  10538 Overture on that disc sounds like it's being recorded right in front of me.  OK, ELO's hit singles have that treatment now on Flashback, Essential ELO, All Over The World, etc etc.  But this our chance to have the other tracks along with the hits back in their original context. 

2. Maybe it's just me, but the remasters we have so far gave me a better understanding of how Jeff and the band recorded.  The production behind the songs always fascinates me.  In many cases, when the tracks are this clear, it hints to me that Jeff didn't use as many cheap electronic shortcuts for sound effects as some people think.  For example, (although I heard it on an interview, not a remaster) the segue between So Fine & Livin' Thing on A New World Record is a keyboard part on tape... then the tape machine is switched off making the keyboard part slow down, then when the tone matches the opening note of Livin' Thing, Jeff spliced the song in.  This stuff becomes more apparent and you hear so much more detail in CDs made today.  ELO music was about the sound.  In that respect, the band's remasters are way, way overdue.

3. Bonus tracks.  I can't imagine how some fans don't get excited by these.  Many of the bonus tracks on the upcoming remasters could be previous takes of what actually got released.  Jeff, as we all know, is a perfectionist.  Nine times out of ten, the original released versions are indeed the best, but it's always nice to hear the other ideas Jeff had for his songs.  Look at how many versions of Showdown are released.  The original LP version is the best, but how cool is it to listen to the many different things going on before the final version.  Some if works, some of it doesn't.  But it's all fascinating to hear.  These remasters may have unmixed backing tracks of songs we know and other songs that didn't make the cut.  These possibilities alone are a huge thrill if you're a fan of any group.

But back to the LP debate, I've been torn on this issue for years.  I know people who can't imagine listening to Janis Joplin on anything other than an old vinyl.  But the CD has been winning out in recent years.  Look, I can appreciate the warmth of LP sound, it beats early CDs and most certainly cassettes, 8-tracks, etc.  Now, I'm not going to pretend that I know everything there is to know about digital vs. analog technology, but CD audio has clearly come a long way.  I don't believe digital "compression" for today's CDs is that detrimental to the sound quality.  MP3's, on the other hand, different story.  That's my main concerning with having music go completely digital.  MP3 all the time would be a step back for music quality.  DVD would probably deliver the least amount of compression, but that's a whole other topic.  I know LP sound isn't "compressed" but analog has its issues as well.  Don't ask me to list them, my brain's too fried.

Even with upscale LP equipment, I need heavy convincing that these forthcoming remastered CDs will be worse than the original LPs as I believe some people suggest.  Today's CDs have the warmth of original vinyl, and when it comes to clarity, they win hands down.